Stark’s The Weeping City of Mhach Survival Guide // Final Fantasy XIV

Hello tanksters, I’m Stark and this is the guide for the Wiping City of Mhach, as people now call it. This is the second 24-player raid in Heavensward and it has truly deserved its new pet name. The number of silly wipes I’ve seen here almost rival the ones in the World of Darkness. The funny thing is that all mechanics here are very predictable once you’ve seen them a couple of times. This raid has four big bad bosses and all of them can wipe you with a vengeance if you’re not paying attention. If most people are paying attention, this raid can feel like a stroll down Gridania. A wipy Gridania, but still Gridania. The first boss comes straight from a Starship Troopers bad hair day. Tank this mutant spider away from the party and pay attention to all recurring mechanics. Dark Spike is a medium tank buster on the main tank.

Cooldown this one as needed, it won’t hurt very much. Silken Spray is a rear area attack, evade this as it comes. The boss targets several players for a spit attack, which drops a damaging web where you drop the arrow. Try to drop these on the outside of the arena. This makes it easier to evade Spidey’s shifting sand attack. This one pulls everyone to the center of the arena for some massive proximity damage when the boss re-emerges.

You avoid this by moving into the webs, which is why it’s better to drop them on the outside. The boss also digs down to run some circular AoEs from the center of the arena. Position yourself properly to evade these, while avoiding the webs until you need them. The boss then re-emerges at a red crash point, dealing damage the closer you are from it, so move away to minimize this. The boss then targets players with big green goo AoEs that glue players together and keep them in place. This is just like Sawtooth’s mechanics in the Void Ark. Ideally stay away from the targeted players, but if some get glued together, run through the stripes to help free them. Shadow burst targets a player with a stack marker for massive shareable damage. This doesn’t need any explanation, stack up and heal through. Frond Affearead is a gaze attack that inflicts panic on everyone, making them run around like lunatics. Like all gaze attacks, turn away from the boss to evade it altogether.

At some point the boss will push everyone upwards to its nest. Here, it will encroach in the center and start casting progressively more powerful AoEs. The boss also gets powered up by the blue balls of doom that slowly move towards it. If you see these close to you, run towards them so they explode on you for some light damage instead. However, this only delays the boss powering up. To stop this sequence, a few players must go down again and foil big Spidey’s plans. To do this, find a Spitting Spider and kill it. This opens a passage downstairs where a few players can go into.

On the runs I’ve seen, this tends to be team C but I haven’t yet seen any reliable convention form. Regardless, there’s an add to kill here so its good if one tank and one healer come down along with a few DPSers. While the tank grabs attention from the add, DPSers can burn down the Keynots around the arena. Do this and miss Spidey comes back down, continuing the fight. The rest is more of the same, rinse and repeat until you’re done. The second boss, Forgall, is where I’ve seen the most wipes until now. If you can beat this one, you can beat the rest easily. Let’s look at recurring mechanics. The boss sometimes summons some Shrivelled adds while casting several line AoEs. These don’t pose a threat but the AoEs can be instant-kill. Group them up for a burn down while evading those AoEs. Megido flame is another set of line AoEs, evade them as they come. Punishing Ray is heavy raid-wide AoE, however you can contain it by having one player standing at each one of the little red gushing circles around the arena.

Brand of the fallen targets several players and transforms everyone into a toad while dealing heavy damage. All marked players need to group together to avoid toad status and mitigate damage. Evil Mist deals raid-wide damage. Heal through this as it comes. Dark Eruption targets several players with red arrows for eruption AoEs and vulnerability stacks. Try to drop these away from party to minimize splash damage. Now for the important mechanics. At several points, several Poison Mist spheres spawn in the arena. They then spawn a puddle of goo that explodes and gives you a zombification stack.

Getting multiple stacks turns into a zombie and make you go after your party mate’s brains. You can avoid these during phase one, but you will need them during phase three. Push the boss to half health and it will go into phase two. You must now deal with three adds, which is just about right for three tanks. In the meantime, the boss goes off to charge his super attack, so you know what means. The most dangerous add is the succubus so burn it down first. If you’re tanking it, stay on the lookout for Beguiling Mist. This casts an arena-wide seduce, which makes a mess of the whole raid, so stun this as soon as you see it. Also, pay attention to the Haagenti add. This one casts Mortal Ray, a gaze attack which debuffs everyone with Doom. Look the other way to evade it. As DPSer or healer, keep your back to this add while you burn the other two.

The Dahak add has an annoying rear AoE attack that applies concussion, so if you’re tanking it, face is sideways from the raid to avoid this. Finish off the adds, and off you go to phase three. This is more of the same, except you now must deal with Megadeath. This kills everyone alive, so your only chance is not to be technically alive in the first place. To do that, step into one of the green puddles and wait for it explode. This gives you a zombification stack, allowing you survive Megadeath. Take care to only get one stack or you will turn into a zombie. Hell Wind is the big one for healers. This drops everyone’s health to about one point and there’s nothing you can do about it. Stack up and mass heal through it as it comes. Mechanics repeat until you tell this fellow to go and take a shower. Now before you go on to the next boss, you must politely beat on the door.

Literally speaking. This arena is split into three platforms, with the stone face in the middle one. The convention is for team B to tank the boss in the middle one, while teams A and C take care of the side platforms. If you’re team B’s tank, keep stone face facing away from the party to contain its flashy line attack. Not long after the fight starts, some adds will spawn on each platform. If you’re on teams A or C, get back there are burn them down. The platforms will lock you in until you do so. More importantly, after a while the boss will turn to the raid and start casting Flaring Epigraph. You need to active the shield in the middle platform and to do so, a player from teams A and C need to return to their platform and step on the flashy button at the end.

This activates the shield, which protects from an instant wipe. Having knocked the door down, you now get to face Ozma, the badass super boss from Final Fantasy 9. And this spherical fellow is just as badass here. Still, what is mighty Ozma against 24 warriors of light? This arena consists of a strip around the boss with three platforms at equal distance. You can fall from the platforms here so watch your step. Each team can setup camp in their own platform to handle all mechanics. This fight has three phases and is mostly about handling Ozma’s three different forms and the mechanics that come along with them.

The fight starts with Ozma’s sphere form. The first thing the boss does is mark a player with black tracking AoE. If you’re it, drop it at the back end of the platform, while everyone else stacks right next to the boss. This AoE then turns into a divebomb marker where a stone block add drops, dealing damage to anyone nearby. Tanks must pick these up as they will go straight for the healers once they drop. The boss will then transform into either a cube or a pyramid, and use different attacks. In cube form, Ozma will open with a raid-wide AoE that stacks vulnerability on everyone not standing very close to him on the platform. The boss will then keep shooting lasers at the tanks while in this form. As tank, move to the side strip to bait the lasers away from the party. Blue orbs of doom also start circling the arena. These hit tanks like a ton of bricks and can outright kill other players.

Therefore, everyone not tanking should stack near the boss to avoid these orbs, and let them hit the tank as they go. In pyramid form, Ozma will open with a frontal line attack on each platform. Everyone must move away from the platform to evade this. A third way through the fight, Ozma will cast Black Hole and suck you who knows where. Here, you will see three platforms, with each team on one of them. Each platform has an Atomos at the end, which will keep spawning adds until you kill it. There’s also a platform you need to stand on that makes another party’s Atomos vulnerable to damage. If you’ve done The Labyrinth of the Ancients, you know what this is all about. As tank, don’t bother with Atomos, instead keep the new adds under control. As everyone else, dump DPS on Atomos as fast as you can to free yourself from this platform. You can finish the adds afterwards. Once you’re done, you can jump down and take a go at Ozmashade. Pay attention to Assimilation, a gaze attack that imprisons you inside a rock.

Turn away from Ozmashade to evade this and help free any players that didn’t. Ozmashade may also mark you with black meteors markers. Drop these away from the raid to minimize damage. By the way, this whole phase is a DPS check. If you linger too long here, Ozma outright wipes the raid. Once you’re done, you can get back outside and continue the fight. The third phase is literally more of the same, as you have a higher number of the same mechanics to deal with.

Across all forms, Ozma will now target two players per team for meteor AoEs. The convention I’ve seen is for one player on each team to drop it on the back of the platform and for the other player to drop it on the left stripe. Left and back. Not doing this right, by the way, is the single biggest cause of wipes at this boss, as far as I’ve seen.

The same flying stone cubes will then come crashing down on each spot and go straight for the healers. As tank, grab the ones on your side if you can as they can overwhelm one party quite fast. Cube form is the overpowered one now. Ozma will still throw lasers at the tanks and rotate the blue orbs of doom. However, the boss will also cast Holy, which pushes everyone back a bit. Therefore, as tank, make sure you are standing on the front edge of the platform, so you won’t fall when Ozma pushes you back. Ozma will also target a player for a shareable attack, so stack up when you see those arrows. Unless you’re the tank of course, as you must keep baiting the lasers away. Mechanics repeat until you wipe again. Just kidding. Not. Don’t worry though, as the final boss is a piece of cake. And that’s Calofisteri, a flying giant night elf demon in serious need of an industrial hairdresser. She has many mechanics but you can heal through most of it. Tank this fellow away from the party as usual.

This fight is a tight sequence of events that always come in the same order. Haircut targets half the arena for high damage and a bleed debuff. You can see this attack coming a mile away by looking at the boss’s hair. This attack always comes on the side with a big spike coming out of it. Throughout the fight, Miss Cali will cast Extension. This makes a Lurking Lock blue circle marker spawn in the arena. If you go near this marker, a hair add will imprison and strangle the player inside to death. You have a few seconds to kill the add before it kills the player.

Best thing to do is not to go anywhere near these lurking markers at all. After a while, the boss will move to the center and start charging her super attack. Several Bijou adds will also spawn around the arena. Burn these down as fast as possible as these power the damage of miss Cali’s ultimate. The boss also targets some players with a red marker during this phase. If you see this on you, start running around the arena asap to escape the incoming ion canon attack. These attacks follow you around and stack a ton of vulnerability debuffs on you before you even know what’s happening.

Once you’re done with this, stack up to take on the ultimate. On the third phase, miss Cali will spawn several lock adds in different configurations. First, she spawns a group of razor and bulb adds around the arena. The bulb adds stomp the ground around them, while the razor adds run a donut AoE with a safe spot on the inside. Therefore, either move to a razor add for protection or to the outside of the arena away from all the adds. The next configuration is a number of bulb orbs on the center and around the arena. She also casts Penetration at this point, and this is a tricky one. Penetration with pull to the inside if you’re looking at the boss or push you to the outside if you’re looking away from the boss. It will then stun you for a few seconds.

Therefore, what you want is to position yourself in a way that she pushes you away to somewhere safe. The next and last configuration is a set of shooting locks on the outside of the arena. These shoot an instant line AoE at whatever direction they are facing. Look at them and move to a safe position to avoid the attack. The boss will occasionally cast Depth Charge, rushing towards a player. Keep an eye on this and on the position of the spike in her hair and she follows this up with another haircut. Of course, Lurking Locks will keep spawning during this phase, so pay attention to these. Mechanics repeat until Miss Cali finally goes off to meet her hairdresser. And that’s it for the Wiping City of Mhach. Still not as wipy as the World of Darkness but a close second nonetheless.

Next, it’s time to check out on the Ixali and find out what’s going with Garuda yet again. Thanks for watching and feel free to subscribe for more guides and soundtracks. See you next time. .